The emoTions
A PhilosoPhicAl inTroducTion
Julien A. deonnA & fAbrice Teroni
Julien A. d eonn A & f A brice Teroni The emo Tions
‘Quite simply the best introduction to the philosophy of the emotions on the market. The book is beautifully written, and would be ideal for an advanced undergraduate or graduate course on the emotions, but in fact all scholars working on this topic will have things to learn from it. I recommend it very highly.’
Tim Crane, University of Cambridge, UK
‘Deonna’s and Teroni’s argumentation is subtle and muscular; their prose is engaging and accessible; and their novel account of the relation of emotions to value is particularly notable. Not only informative, but exciting to read.’
Ronald de Sousa, University of Toronto, Canada
‘This is an excellent volume, both as an introduction to the philosophy of emotion, and as an original contribution to contemporary debates about the nature and importance of emotional experiences. The work here is original, important and timely, and will no doubt receive a wide audience.’
Michael Brady, University of Glasgow, UK
The emotions are at the centre of our lives and, for better or worse, imbue them with much of their significance. The philosophical problems stirred up by the existence of the emotions, over which many great philosophers of the past have laboured, revolve around attempts to understand what this significance amounts to. Are emotions feelings, thoughts, or experiences? If they are experiences, what are they experiences of? Are emotions rational? In what sense do emotions give meaning to what surrounds us? The Emotions: A Philosophical Introduction introduces and explores these questions in a clear and accessible way. The authors discuss the following key topics:
• the diversity and unity of the emotions;
• the relations between emotion, belief and desire;
• the nature of values;
• the relations between emotions and perceptions;
• emotions viewed as evaluative attitudes;
• the link between emotions and evaluative knowledge;
• the nature of moods, sentiments, and character traits.
Including chapter summaries and guides to further reading, The Emotions: A Philosophical Introduction is an ideal starting point for any philosopher or student studying the emotions.
It will also be of interest to those in related disciplines such as psychology and the social sciences.
Julien A. Deonna is Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, and at the Swiss Centre for Research in the Affective Sciences.
He works on theories of emotions and moral psychology. He is co-author of In Defense of Shame (2011).
Fabrice Teroni is postdoctoral Assistant at the Philosophy Department at Bern University, Switzerland, and Senior Researcher at the Swiss Centre for Research in the Affective Sciences. He works on theories of emotions and memory. He is co-author of In Defense of Shame (2011).
Philosophy
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The Emotions
The emotions are at the center of our lives and, for better or worse, imbue them with much of their significance. The philosophical problems stirred up by the existence of the emotions, over which many great philosophers of the past have labored, revolve around attempts to understand what this significance amounts to. Are emotions feelings, thoughts, or experiences? If they are experiences, what are they experiences of? Are emotions rational? In what sense do emotions give meaning to what surrounds us?
The Emotions: A Philosophical Introduction introduces and explores these questions in a clear and accessible way. The authors discuss the following key topics:
the diversity and unity of the emotions;
the relations between emotion, belief, and desire;
the nature of values;
the relations between emotions and perceptions;
emotions viewed as evaluative attitudes;
the link between emotions and evaluative knowledge;
the nature of moods, sentiments, and character traits.
Including chapter summaries and guides to further reading,The Emotions: A Philosophical Introduction is an ideal starting point for any philosopher or student studying the emotions. It will also be of interest to those in related disciplines such as psychology and the social sciences.
Julien A. Deonna is Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy of the University of Geneva (Switzerland) and at the Swiss Centre for Research in the Affective Sciences. He works on theories of emotions and moral psychology. He is co-author ofIn Defense of Shame(Oxford University Press, 2011).
Fabrice Teroni is Postdoctoral Assistant at the Philosophy Department at Bern University (Switzerland) and Senior Researcher at the Swiss Centre for Research in the Affective Sciences. He works on theories of emotions and memory. He is co-author of Defense of Shame(Oxford University Press, 2011).
“Quite simply the best introduction to the philosophy of the emotions on the market. The book is beautifully written, and would be ideal for an advanced under- graduate or graduate course on the emotions, but in fact all scholars working on this topic will have things to learn from it. I recommend it very highly.”
–Tim Crane, University of Cambridge, UK
“Deonna’s and Teroni’s argumentation is subtle and muscular; their prose is enga- ging and accessible; and their novel account of the relation of emotions to value is particularly notable. Not only informative, but exciting to read.”
–Ronald de Sousa, University of Toronto, Canada
“Exceptionally wide-ranging, yet tightly structured, sophisticated in discussion, yet succinctly and lucidly written. Accessible to newcomers and enlarging to those already engaged in philosophizing about the emotions.”
–David Pugmire, University of Southampton, UK
“An eminently readable book, which will certainly prove indispensable for neophytes and specialists alike.”
–Christine Tappolet, University of Montréal, Canada
“The positive account of emotions Deonna and Teroni provide is a viable contender, well worth taking seriously. I highly recommend the book.”
–Bennett Helm, Franklin and Marshall College, USA
“This is an excellent volume. The work is original, important and timely, and will no doubt receive a wide audience.”
–Michael Brady, University of Glasgow, UK
“This is a wonderful, engaging introduction to the philosophy of emotion. The book has a fast pace and a challenging style. Yet, its subject matter represents first-class scholarship.”
–Nico H. Frijda, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
The Emotions
A philosophical introduction
Julien A. Deonna and Fabrice Teroni
This edition published 2012 by Routledge
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Deonna, Julien A.
[Qu’est-ce qu’une émotion? English]
The emotions : a philosophical introduction / by Julien A. Deonna and Fabrice Teroni.
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Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 978-0-415-61492-4 (hardback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-0-415-61493-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Emotions (Philosophy) I. Teroni, Fabrice. II. Title.
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Acknowledgements viii
Preface x
1 Homing in on the emotions 1
Phenomenology 1
Intentionality 3
Epistemology 6
Emotions within the affective domain 7
Conclusion 11
Questions and further readings 12
2 The diversity and unity of emotions 14
Positive and negative emotions 14
Conscious and unconscious emotions 16
Other distinctions 18
Basic emotions 18
Emotions: unity or diversity? 20
Unity regained 24
Conclusion 26
Questions and further readings 27
3 Emotions, beliefs, and desires 28
Emotions and beliefs 28
The mixed theory 29
The desire satisfaction/frustration approach 33
Conclusion 38
Questions and further readings 39
4 Introducing values 40
Emotions and values 40
Subjectivism about values 42
Fitting attitude analyses 44
Forms of value realism 49
Conclusion 50
Questions and further readings 50
5 Emotions as value judgments 52
The evaluative judgment theory 52
The add-on strategy 56
Emotions as constructions 58
Conclusion 61
Questions and further readings 61
6 Perceptual theories of the emotions 63
James’s theory 63
Emotions as direct perceptions of values 66 Emotions as indirect perceptions of values 71
Conclusion 74
Questions and further readings 75
7 The attitudinal theory of emotions 76
Attitudes and contents 76
Emotions as felt bodily attitudes 78
Virtues of the theory 82
Intentionality and phenomenology 85
Conclusion 89
Questions and further readings 89
8 Emotions and their justification 91
Why-questions: perceptions vs. emotions 92
Value judgments and value intuitions 93
Back to why-questions 95
Justified emotions 96
Bridging the gaps 98
Conclusion 101
Questions and further readings 102
9 The nature and role of affective explanations 104
Moods and temperaments 105
Character traits and sentiments 106
Desires 110
Limits on the negative epistemological role of
motivational states 112
vi Contents
A positive epistemological role for motivational states? 113
Conclusion 115
Questions and further readings 116
10 The importance of emotions 118
From justified emotions to justified evaluative judgments 118
Emotions and emotional sensitivity 121
Emotions and understanding 122
Conclusion 124
Questions and further readings 124
Bibliography 126
Index 134
Acknowledgements
This book is the intellectual offspring of a short introductory essay on the nature of emotions we wrote in French under the titleQu’est-ce qu’une émotion?
published a few years ago with Vrin. While pleased with what we had achieved, we soon realized that numerous gaps had to befilled and that many of the topics considered and arguments pursued required further clarification and elaboration. The present essay, which we strangely thought would be a slightly revised translation of the original, is essentially a new book, despite the fact that it shares with its ancestor part of its basic structure, arguments, and general approach to the emotions. We express our gratitude to Vrin for having welcomed the present project.
In the process of writing this book, we have benefited immensely from our very stimulating working environment within the Swiss National Centre of Compe- tence in Research in the Affective Sciences at the University of Geneva, and in particular within Thumos, its research group in the philosophy of the emotions. We would like to thank its core members, Otto Bruun, Thomas Cochrane, Anita Konzelmann Ziv, Federico Lauria, Olivier Massin, Kevin Mulligan, Alain Pé-Curto, Raffaele Rodogno, and Cain Todd for their invaluable help. Our gratitude extends also to the following people for their precious remarks, advice, and kindness over the years: Monika Betzler, Michael Brady, Fabrice Clément, Ronald de Sousa, Jérôme Dokic, Sabine Döring, Julien Dutant, Pascal Engel, Richard Glauser, Bennett Helm, Dale Jacquette, Laur- ence Kauffmann, Philipp Keller, Anita Konzelmann Ziv, Stéphane Lemaire, Pierre Livet, Anne Meylan, Adam Morton, Bence Nanay, Isabelle Pitteloud, David Sander, Klaus Scherer, Gianfranco Soldati, and Emma Tieffenbach.
Our thinking has also been enriched by the questions of our students and the numerous discussions we have had with them on the topics covered in this book at the Universities of Bern, Geneva, Lausanne, and Neuchâtel. Thanks to all of them.
The following people have read the whole or parts of previous versions of this book: Philip Gerrans, Federico Lauria, Olivier Massin, Kevin Mulligan, Mikko Salmela, Christine Tappolet, and Edoardo Zamuner. Their comments and criticisms have been decisive. We cannot thank them enough for the generosity and care they have displayed in their engagement with our work.
Our deepest gratitude goes to Kevin Mulligan, who first aroused our interest
in the emotions and who, through his encouragement, has been a constant source of stimulation in the sharpening of our ideas. Our most important debt is to Otto Bruun. We owe the readability of this book to his work on earlier drafts. More importantly, his comments, suggestions, and objections have not only helped us avoid numerous mistakes, they have also contributed immensely to improving the quality of our presentation. Finally, we want to acknowledge here all that we owe to Peter Goldie for his kindness and generosity as a friend, the support and stimulation he offered to younger philosophers, and the inspiring example and infectious enthusiasm he provided as an original thinker. He died while our work on this book was coming to a close. We will miss him dearly.
Preface
The present book is an introduction to the philosophy of the emotions and as such presents and assesses the major theories of what the emotions are, as well as the numerous issues that the significant and growing interest in them has brought to light in recent years. It would perhaps have been possible to provide this introductory overview of the theoretical landscape from a detached distance, but this is a route we have deliberately chosen not to follow. Instead, we have opted to lead the reader on a ground-level trek through the intellectual thickets of the current debates in the field, taking sides and staking out positions as we advance. This book is, as a result, a very opinionated introduction.
This is not the only reason why this introduction is distinctive and why it may claim to fill a gap in theflurry of recent publications on the emotions.
First, it is throughout informed by many broader discussions and debates central to contemporary philosophy of mind and epistemology. The phe- nomenology and intentionality of the emotions, as well as epistemological issues surrounding them, are considered from the perspective of these debates as they are conducted in the current literature. Second, while the book works its way towards a satisfactory account of the emotions, it also tries to make up for the relative neglect that has attended the rest of our affective lives.
Thus, we furnish accounts of emotional dispositions, moods, temperaments, character traits, and sentiments and examine their various roles in connection with the emotions. Third and finally, the much dissected connection between emotions and values or evaluative properties is subjected to a degree of scrutiny unusual for a textbook. This is not only because we think that clarifying this connection is essential for an understanding of the nature of emotions, but also because it informs crucial philosophical debates raised by their study, namely those surrounding the metaphysics of values and the nature of our evaluative knowledge. The shape and relevance of these debates for the general philosophy of the emotions is also something we have sought to convey.
Before we present the structure of the book, let us make a few remarks regarding our use of notes and references. The knowledgeable reader will be struck by the scarcity of the former. We have indeed kept notes to a mini- mum in order to avoid distractions from the main threads of the arguments
we discuss. While we have put what we perceive as the principal references in the main body of the text, we have been rather conservative in doing so, again with the aim of maximizing the readability of a text that can, due to the complexity of the material, at times be challenging. The drawbacks of these choices are, we hope, made up for in the ‘Questions and further read- ings’ sections at the end of each chapter. In those sections, we furnish the resources to pursue in greater depth the main themes and lines of inquiry in the broader literature.
We shall now briefly present how our discussion is structured. We start by emphasizing three fundamental features of the emotions: it feels a certain way to have an emotion, emotions are about something, and we assess emotions from a variety of different perspectives. The issues raised by these features of the emotions – their phenomenology, their intentionality, and their episte- mological significance – constitute the core material on which this book is built. Introducing these three features is the principal purpose of Chapter 1, which in this way provides a first insight into the nature of emotions and allows us to contrast them with other types of psychological phenomena, in particular other types of affective phenomena.
Chapter 2 introduces a series of distinctions commonly drawn within the class of emotions. There are for instance positive and negative emotions, conscious and unconscious emotions, reflexive and non-reflexive emotions. We turn our attention to the significance of these distinctions, and offer a closely argued critique of a recent and important brand of skepticism regarding the very unity of the class of emotions, a skepticism fostered by another of these distinctions– that between basic and nonbasic emotions.
In Chapter 3, we investigate the first group of theories about what the emotions are, theories that claim emotions are reducible to admixtures of beliefs and desires. While presenting some of the classical reasons for which these various theories have been found wanting, we also show, through a deeper understanding of the nature of desires, why, ultimately, the fact that emotions motivate us in all sorts of ways does not support the idea that they should be understood in terms of desires.
Theories of the emotions that do not appeal to desires have generally approached them through their connections with values. The remainder of the book assesses theories of the emotions that conceive of them as specific forms of evaluation. Chapter 4 looks at the connection between evaluative properties and emotional responses and, more centrally, the metaphysical nature of evaluative properties. We thus review different positions on the nature of these properties, from the strongest forms of subjectivism to various forms of objectivism. We conclude that there are good reasons to think that these properties are independent of our emotional responses.
In Chapter 5, we focus on theories according to which emotions are evaluative judgments. We discuss numerous ways in which one might try to salvage this classical and intellectualist portrayal of the emotions. One strategy involves complementing the intellectual judgment with a further layer of
feelings (add-on theories). Another regards emotions as inchoate feelings given form by intellectual fiat (reversed add-on or constructionist theories).
All these theories, we argue, fail to account for the distinctive role of phenomenology within the emotions.
By contrast, perceptual theories of the emotions can reasonably claim to be giving the phenomenological aspect of emotions its due weight, in viewing them as perceptual experiences of evaluative properties. Chapter 6 investigates the credentials of this presently very influential family of approaches to the emo- tions. In reviewing various and more or less elaborate forms of the perceptual theory, which lay more or less emphasis on the role of bodily feelings in emotion, we suggest that all of them face serious worries. While this dis- cussion helps us bring into sharper focus the basic constraints a satisfactory theory of the emotions has to meet – regarding their phenomenology, their intentionality and their epistemological role – the perceptual analogy is, we conclude, more misleading than enlightening.
On the basis of the various difficulties attending the theories wefind in the contemporary philosophical literature on the emotions, Chapter 7 lays out a novel account, one which we claim satisfies the basic constraints that our discussion of the preceding chapters has helped uncover. The otherwise mysterious connection between emotions and evaluative properties, we suggest, is brought to the surface by leveraging a distinction between attitudes and their content. Unlike all the other theories that lay emphasis on this con- nection, we argue that evaluative properties do not figure in the content of the emotions. Instead, this connection is grounded in the attitudinal com- ponent specific to each emotion type. We develop this approach by appealing to the idea that emotions are felt stances towards objects, and explain how it accounts for the intimate link between the distinctive intentionality and phenomenology of the emotions.
The three last chapters of the book are structured around the epistemological issues raised by the emotions and aim to assess their role in the acquisition of evaluative knowledge. Chapter 8 investigates the conditions that have to be met in order for an emotion to be justified. Justified emotions, we argue, do not depend on any antecedent cognition of evaluative properties: they can be justified by non-evaluative states such as perceptions, memories, or factual beliefs. Consequently they need not be mere reactions to prior evaluative knowledge or belief and can thus play a fundamental role in our access to the evaluative domain. Although we conduct our discussion from within the framework of our own theory of the emotions, the conclusions we reach are largely independent of it.
Chapter 9 focuses on the roles that affective and/or motivational states such as moods, sentiments, character traits, and desires play in regard to the emotions.
We provide detailed descriptions of these states, examine the fundamental roles they play in causing and influencing emotions and contrast these roles with another we might think they play, i.e. that of providing reasons for emotional episodes. We present and criticize some important arguments for xii Preface
the latter view –and conclude that they do not contribute positively to the justification of emotions.
Thefinal chapter looks at the importance of emotions in regard to evaluative knowledge. More specifically, it investigates whether there exists a safe epis- temological route going from the emotions to the evaluative judgments they tend to elicit and how this route compares with others ending in the same judgments but bypassing the emotions altogether. We conclude with an account of why the emotional route has a very special significance in the acquisition of evaluative knowledge.
The philosophy of emotions seeks to develop a systematic theory of the phenomena we refer to by terms such as ‘fear’,‘envy’, ‘anger’, ‘sadness’,‘joy’,
‘embarrassment’, ‘shame’, ‘jealousy’, ‘remorse’, ‘boredom’, ‘nostalgia’, ‘pride’,
‘regret’,‘admiration’,‘compassion’,‘disgust’,‘amusement’,‘indignation’,‘hope’, which fall under the generic label of ‘emotions’. We know it when we are undergoing emotions, often we know which emotion we have, and we know how to ascribe them to others and why we ascribe them. Still, the fact that this intuitive knowledge is easily available should not make us think that emotions are simple phenomena. Let us start, then, by introducing what are often thought to be the central features of the emotions, features we shall illustrate by considering how the emotions contrast with other affective phenomena and, more generally, other psychological states. Doing so will not only furnish some preliminary insights into the nature of emotions, but will also put us in a position to briefly present some of the main issues with which we shall be concerned in this book. The first of these core features concerns the role of feelings in the emotions (their phenomenology), the second the fact that emotions are directed towards objects (their intentionality), and the third the sorts of standards to which the emotions are answerable (their epistemology).
Phenomenology
Consider the following everyday expressions: we say we are‘in the grip of panic’,
‘struck by fear’, ‘overcome with joy’, ‘oppressed by shame’, ‘overwhelmed by sorrow’. These locutions suggest that emotions are reactions we passively undergo. The term ‘passion’, which used to refer to what are now known as emotions, testifies to that fact. So are the many participial adjectives designating emotions (e.g., ‘horrified’, ‘astonished’, ‘troubled’, ‘vexed’). In the emotions, we seem to be acted on, and this typically manifests itself to us through bodily agitations or disturbances – a feature to which the very term ‘emotion’ alludes. The crucial point for present purposes, however, is that these bodily disturbances are felt. This is why the term ‘feeling’ is never far away when there is talk of the emotions.
What are these bodily disturbances or agitations that we are said to be feeling during emotional episodes? Emotions are generally held to involve
bodily sensations or feelings. Anger, for example, may lend itself to a description in terms of a configuration of sensations caused inter alia by the following elements: an accelerating heart rate, quickened breathing, an increased blood pressure, a rush of adrenaline. Such descriptions will also refer to the sorts of kinesthetic sensations and muscular feedback characteristic of the particular emotion that is experienced–compare for instance the muscular relaxation in relief with the muscular tension typical of anger. To the kinds of sensations just described, we may also add the sensations of pleasure and displeasure often referred to as hedonic qualities or tones. There are after all emotions that feel good, like joy or admiration, and others that do not, like fear or sadness.
More generally, and independently of any specification of how their felt character should be described, the emotions are said to have a phenomenology:
there is a ‘what-it-is-like’-ness to the experience of any emotion. This seems to be what we are referring to when we talk generally of‘the feeling of anger’or
‘the feeling of shame’. Now, while it is easy to approach the phenomenology of the emotions through its dimension of bodily disturbance, it goes without saying that felt agitations of the body do not seem to be particularly salient in the phenomenology of many emotions – think for instance of regret or contentment. Similarly, the idea that all emotions are intrinsically either pleasant or unpleasant is less than straightforward. While many think that anger is unpleasant and that hope is pleasant, this is far from obvious. To complicate matters further, the phenomenology of the emotions might lend itself to very different descriptions depending on whether the subject’s attention is focused on what he feels or is directed elsewhere, for instance on the situation that triggers his emotion.
An important task we shall take up in this book then concerns the role and nature of feelings, especially bodily and hedonic feelings, within emotions.
The fact that phenomenology is a central feature of the emotions is reflected in the fact that just knowing that someone is angry, afraid or ashamed is already to be in possession of a substantial amount of psychological information about him, and this is so even when one does not know what he is angry about, afraid or ashamed of (e.g., Roberts 2003: 146). Yet, can we identify the emotions with some aspect of their felt character, be it bodily sensations or hedonic tones? These issues, and more generally the question as to how we should conceive of the phenomenology of the emotions and its roles, will be the center of our discussions in Chapters 6 and 7. As we shall see, while there have been many attempts to identify emotions with phenomenological features; these attempts seem to rule out the possibility of unfelt emotions and run the risk of placing too much emphasis on the qualities of the emotional experience itself at the expense of what these experiences are experiences of.
Indeed, while it is true that the emotions are affective phenomena that seem to be partly characterized by what it is like to have them, another of their central features consists in the fact that they are directed towards various aspects of the world. It is to this central feature of the emotions that we now turn.
2 Homing in on the emotions
Intentionality
We said that emotions are reactions. This raises the question as to what they are reactions to. A good starting point is to consider the way we speak of the emotions. A cursory overview of our linguistic practices in this area brings to light the fact that emotions seem to be always about something. One can always ask, for instance, what Bernard is angry about (e.g., ‘he is angry at Arthur because he insulted him’), what he is afraid of (e.g.,‘a stock-market crash’), who he is jealous of (e.g.,‘Max, who is dating Mary’). This is part of what philosophers have in mind when they call emotions intentional phe- nomena. This is simply a term of art for saying that the emotions are about something, and should not be understood as suggesting that they are states we deliberately or intentionally enter into. Rather, as we have seen, the opposite seems to be the case. It is worth observing that claiming that emotions have intentional objects in the sense just defined is not, or not merely, to claim that they have causes or triggers. While the object of an emotion is also often its cause, it does not have to be. The object of Bernard’s jealousy is Max, but its cause is, say, Mary’s praise of Max’s humor. Note as well that to say that emotions always have objects is not to say that these objects are the focus of attention for the duration of the emotion – John is worried about his exam, but his attention is presently focused on checking whether his bike is locked– nor even that the subject is always clear about what these objects are, as we shall see in our discussion of the various senses in which emotions can be said to be unconscious in Chapter 2.
The language of emotions also reveals that they can have different sorts of objects. This is reflected in the fact that emotion-related verbs can take a variety of grammatical complements. Take the following examples: ‘Bernard fears that his life is in danger’, ‘Mary hopes that the economy will improve’,
‘Alison regrets that Jacob did not come to the party’. In these three cases, the emotion-related verb is followed by a propositional complement. However, there are also cases such as ‘Bernard fears the lion’, ‘Mary admires Max’, and
‘Jeffrey despises sexists’, where the verb takes a nominal complement. Although most emotion verbs can take either nominal or propositional complements, there are some notable exceptions: ‘admire’standardly requires a direct object, and‘hope’a that-clause. It is often easy to transform a construction involving a propositional complement into one with a nominal complement (‘Bernard fears for his life’, ‘Mary hopes for an improvement in the economy’), but transformations in the other direction are often not possible. For example, sentences of the form ‘Mary admires the fact that Max is/did F’are not only grammatically infelicitous, but it is not clear that Mary’s admiration for Max could be captured in terms of a single proposition, or even a collection of propositions.
These features of the language of emotions reflect the rich variety of the emotions’intentional objects. In some cases, the emotions are or even have to be attitudes towards specific states of affairs, e.g., regret. In other cases, they
are attitudes we take towards specific objects or events that do not seem reducible to an attitude taken towards a state of affairs involving that object, or a collection of such states. Beliefs, but– as we shall see – also desires, do not seem to exhibit the same richness.
Now, whatever type of object emotions have, the fact that they always have one helps distinguish them from another very important class of affective phenomena, i.e. moods. Moods, like emotions, have a characteristic phe- nomenology. There clearly is something it is like to be in a downcast or a grumpy mood. And, while moods typically last longer than emotions, they need not always do so. Unlike emotions, however, and this is the principled distinction between these two types of affective phenomena, moods do not appear to be intentional in that they never target specific objects. This is why it does not make sense to restrict the attribution of a mood to specific objects or kinds of objects. One is in a gloomy, grumpy or joyful mood, never gloomy or grumpy about Mike or about the rich. This is reflected in the fact that attributions of moods (e.g., Alison is grumpy) are informative and complete without specification of any object, whereas attributions of emo- tions (e.g., Alison is angry) may, as we have seen, be informative but remain incomplete as long as the object is not specified. Of course, as the standard metaphor goes, our moods ‘color’ our attitudes in general, and have close connections with emotions in particular, which complicates matters further.
Moods often cause emotions (and vice-versa) of the same affective color (someone in a bad mood will tend to feel mainly negative emotions) and moods commonly crystallize in the form of emotional episodes that will target specific objects (Alison’s grumpiness does not have Mike as an object but may well lead to her being angry at him). Similarly, grumpiness may be the result of a series of negative emotions.
If emotions differ from moods in virtue of being intentionally directed at specific objects, how do they come to have the objects they have? A first observation is that emotions can equally well be directed at objects, events, or states of affairs with which the subject is presently in perceptual contact (‘Ben is afraid of this lion’), with which she had previously been in perceptual contact (‘Mary regrets having met Ben in the Jungle’), with which she has never been in such contact (‘Louis is disappointed that Napoleon lost the Battle of Waterloo’), and also with states of affairs with which perceptual contact is impossible (‘Rebecca hopes she will travel to Atlantis’). Here we have an important difference between emotions and perceptions. Perceptions are answerable to a causal constraint according to which the perceived objects and properties have to be causally responsible for the occurrence of the per- ceptual experience. Sam sees the blueness of this vase only if this vase and its blueness cause his visual experience. When such a constraint is not satisfied, he does not see the vase but onlyseemsto see it. And this does not seem true in the case of emotions, or at least certainly not true of all of them. Do we want to say for instance that Ben only seems to be afraid if he has mistaken Bernard passing in a bedsheet for a ghost?1
4 Homing in on the emotions
In answer to the question of how emotions come to have the objects they have, we must then acknowledge, and this is our second observation, that there is no generic answer to that question, for emotions necessarily rely on other mental states in order to be intentionally directed at something. Emotions, unlike perceptions, are always grounded in some other mental state that is also about the object the emotion is directed at. Perception gives us direct access to the relevant objects and facts in the sense that it does not call for the presence of another mental state directed at these very objects and facts, whereas emotions must latch on to information provided by other mental states. And these mental states, which we shall call the cognitive bases of emotions, can be of radically different types.
This is reflected in the fact that emotions can indifferently be directed at the past (‘Ben regrets not having gone to the party’), the present (‘Rosetta is embarrassed by her behavior’) and the future (‘Arthur hopes that the weather will hold up’). Certain types of emotions tend to be directed at one or another of these temporal determinations (this is especially true of the past, remorse and nostalgia being two examples of emotions always directed at the past), but most emotions can, it seems, be about events across the temporal spectrum. Hope can for instance be about past events as when Ben hopes that his letter arrived at its destination. Emotions directed at the past will typically be based on the subject’s memories but may also have testimony as their cognitive base, emotions directed at the present are typically based on perception, and emotions directed at the future are often grounded in imagination-based expectations of the relevant event. But of course the con- tent of the relevant cognitive bases and so the content of the emotion might not be temporally indexed at all, as when I enjoy imagining visiting Rome.
Note furthermore that some emotions require that the subject believes certain things concerning their object (‘Ben regrets not having gone to the party’ requires that Ben believes that he did not go), whereas others require the absence of these beliefs (‘Ben hopes that he will go to the party’implies that he is uncertain whether or not he will go). Certain emotional episodes (‘Ben fears that Nina went to the party without him’) depend on some measure of uncertainty concerning the occurrence of the events in question. The fact that emotions essentially involve cognitive bases will play a crucial role in assessing different accounts of what emotions are.
We have seen that the emotions are always directed at objects that are provided by their cognitive bases. To refer to these objects provided by the cognitive bases of emotions, we shall use the term of art ‘particular objects’, without implying by this that our emotions are always about ordinary material objects–we can worry about the state of the environment or admire a theory. Now, acknowledging that emotions have particular objects may still not seem to provide an exhaustive characterization of the intentionality of emotions. Indeed, emotions do have intentional objects that are provided by their cognitive bases, but they also seem to represent these objects in a char- acteristic way. Suppose Jane is sad because England lost to Germany. It is right
to say that her sadness concerns the result of the match, but it is fair to add that this result is, from Jane’s perspective, a bad thing. Jane takes England’s defeat to be a bad thing, whereas a supporter of Germany takes it to be a good thing. Not only does she take the result to be bad, she takes it to be bad in a specific way–not in a despicable way (she would have felt contempt), nor in an offending way (she would have felt anger), but in a sad way (for she feels sadness). Emotions – or so some philosophers and psychologists tend to believe – connect with specific kinds of evaluations that make up different kinds of emotions. As we shall have ample opportunity to observe, it is indeed illuminating to think of sadness as being connected to the evaluation of its object as a loss, of anger as connected to an evaluation of it as offensive, of fear as connected to the threatening, of admiration as connected to the beautiful, etc. This would make a lot of sense given that our susceptibility to feel emotions seems intimately connected with our tendency to make eva- luative judgments. For instance, I may judge someone to be offensive as a result of the anger I feel towards him.
There seem to be, then, at least two central aspects to the intentionality of the emotions, one linked to the fact that they have particular objects provided by their bases, the other linked to the fact that they seem intimately con- nected to evaluations of these objects. A crucial theme of this book concerns how we should understand the relations between these two aspects of the intentionality of emotions and whether or not their intentionality can be illuminated by appealing to their phenomenology.
Epistemology
These two aspects of the intentionality of the emotions allow us to consider and criticize them from a variety of different perspectives. First, and as a direct consequence of their being directed at particular objects and connected with types of evaluations, emotions are subject to standards of correctness.
If Leonard is afraid of Fido, a friendly and docile dog, we would tell him that the dog poses no danger and would consider his fear inappropriate. Some such standards seem to apply to all the emotions, though perhaps not – as we shall shortly see–to all affective phenomena. In this respect, emotions are similar to many cognitive states such as beliefs and perceptual experiences.
All these states have conditions of correctness, i.e. they have a content in the light of which it is possible to assess whether they fit the facts or not (e.g., Searle 1983). The fact that emotions are assessed as correct or incorrect depending on whether or not theyfit the facts has prompted philosophers to talk about them as having the mind-to-world direction offit–they aim, as it were, at representing the world as it is–and we shall see later in this chapter that this allows us to draw an informative contrast between the emotions and other psychological states.
Second, standards of correctness so conceived should be distinguished from epistemological standards by which we assess the justification of emotions.
6 Homing in on the emotions
Indeed, emotions are often assessed as justified or unjustified in light of the reasons the subject has for them. Bernard has good reasons to be elated if he has just heard from a reliable witness that his wife is in much better health.
His reasons would be bad were his elation based on a report from a notor- iously unreliable witness. In short, our emotions are sometimes justified, and sometimes unjustified. And they can be unjustified even if, by chance per- haps, they meet the standard of correctness just mentioned. That is the case if, although Bernard’s wife is really in good health, his elation is based on the testimony of an unreliable informant. In this last respect, emotions resemble beliefs, for which we also often request reasons (that may or may not justify them), and differ from perceptions that can be said to be correct or incorrect but which are not justified by reasons. This also seems to constitute a sharp contrast between emotions and moods: we tend not to think of moods such as grumpiness as either correct or incorrect or as justified or unjustified.2
For now, let us stress that it is important not to confuse the standards of correctness and justification with still further standards which we also use to assess the emotions. Say Alison laughs at a funny joke told by Bernard, but Roger rebukes her by pointing out that the joke is cruel towards some of the people present. Let us imagine that the joke actually is funny, so Alison’s amusement is still appropriate in the first sense outlined above: the emotion fits its object. Yet Alison’s amusement is nonetheless inappropriate in a different way. The emotion falls short of another kind of standard, one of propriety or morality (D’Arms and Jacobson 2000). Or consider another case:
René is completely desperate, he thinks he has no chances of passing his exam.
Suppose in addition that he has every reason to feel that way: he knows the exam to be difficult, knows that he is very behind in his preparation, etc.
In the light of these reasons, his emotion must be assessed as justified. Still, there is a sense in which it might be thought to be inappropriate. Indeed, from a prudential perspective, he would be better off without it.
We have noted the various perspectives from which emotions can be assessed.
In chapters to come, we will revisit from various angles questions regarding the best way to understand the standards of correctness of emotions, and we will develop our account of them in Chapter 7. And, while issues relating to the standard of justification for emotions will constitute a recurring theme, the various epistemological issues surrounding the justification of emotions and their relations with evaluative judgments will be the focus of the last three chapters of this book.
Emotions within the affective domain
We have introduced a number of distinctions that serve to highlight some differences between emotions and other psychological states, such as beliefs and perceptions on the one hand, and between them and other affective states such as moods on the other hand. Some of these same distinctions will now help us contrast the emotions with yet other psychological phenomena
closely related to them, and that will be the center of many of the discussions to come. We shallfirst focus on affective dispositions, and then on desires.
Consider the following statement:‘Leonard is angry with Nina’. This state- ment, outside of any particular context, can be read in two different ways.
On the one hand, it is possible to understand it as saying that Leonard is at this moment in the grip of anger. Here reference is being made to a parti- cularepisode of anger. But the statement can also be read, not as saying that Leonard is currently boiling with rage, but merely that he tends to feel anger towards Nina in certain circumstances, for instance, when he is in her presence.
In this case, the statement refers to anaffective dispositionthat Leonard has. As opposed to emotional episodes, it makes no sense to ask at what particular moment an affective disposition takes place. Given that attributions of emotions are almost universally subject to this kind of ambiguity, it is important to keep the distinction between episodes and dispositions in mind.3 While we believe that ordinary language does not give us any reason to favor the episodic rather than the dispositional reading, it is clear that these two uses refer to very different phenomena. Observe also that in the foregoing we have reserved, in line with most contemporary research in both psychology and philosophy,4the term ‘emotion’for the relevant affective episodes. This is of course not to imply that affective dispositions are irrelevant to the study of the emotions. On the contrary, it is very important to distinguish several kinds of affective dispositions and to understand the variety of relations they have with emotional episodes.
To this end, one distinction is of particular value. Affective dispositions can be‘single-track’ –concerning a single emotion, or they can be‘multi-track’ – concerning several emotions. So in the case of statements such as‘Leonard is angry at Nina’(on the dispositional reading) or‘Leonard is envious of the rich’, we are attributing to him single-track dispositions (they concern, respec- tively, only anger and envy). Ordinary language does not have a term to refer specifically to this kind of disposition and, for lack of a better term, we shall henceforth refer to them asemotional dispositions.
Let us now consider multi-track dispositions. If Juliette loves Romeo, she is not just disposed to feel some specific emotion towards him (erotic ecstasy?
warm affection? fawning admiration?), but also grief if things turn sour, pride at his accomplishments, or jealousy at the sight of a rival. The same structure can be found in hatred. Hating someone does not consist in being disposed to feel any single emotion but, among other things, to feel glee at the other’s misfortune or indignation at the help he receives from third parties. Following one traditional use of this expression (e.g., Broad 1954: 212–14, Frijda 2007:
192–93), we shall call these types of affective dispositions‘sentiments’.
There is also a third sort of disposition. Being kind-hearted, being honest, being insensitive, being frivolous are also multi-track dispositions, but, unlike sentiments, they do not seem to focus on any particular object but rather generally on any object insofar as it is apprehended in some particular eva- luative light. The honest person will be concerned with how the value of 8 Homing in on the emotions
honesty fares and the kind person will be especially sensitive to the disvalue of suffering. While they focus on values rather than on particular objects, the structure of these multi-track dispositions is similar to that of the sentiments in implying tendencies to experience some particular family of emotions (the kind person will have a greater than normal tendency to feel, say, pity, grati- tude, and affection), or alternatively tendencies not to experience some array of emotions in some particular way (for instance, an inconsiderate person is someone who will be blind to occasions for emotions such as gratitude and compassion). These dispositions are, in everyday discourse, classed ascharacter traits. We hasten to add that emotions are only one of the various manifes- tations of character traits and sentiments, which also find expression in one’s actions and habits of thought. Equally, virtues and vices constitute only a subset of character traits, a subset comprising those traits that have to do to some degree with our moral or intellectual life.
These various affective dispositions are clearly intentional phenomena.
Their intentionality will be a function of the intentionality of the emotions that manifest them, and their objects will differ depending on the type of affective disposition considered. They differ from emotions and moods as regards phenomenology, however. Affective dispositions have no felt quality, save derivatively through the emotions in which theyfind expression (if Leonard is angry with Nina – in the dispositional sense– he remains so even when his mind is entirely occupied with other matters). Finally, it is also probably correct to regard affective dispositions as properties of the individual, which in principle last longer than an emotion or a mood (Leonard’s dispositional anger can last two weeks or a lifetime).
In Chapter 9, we shall provide a more detailed account of the nature of these various affective dispositions. For now, let us turn to desires, which are also often regarded as belonging to the affective domain. What are the differences, if any, between desires and emotions? Here are some salient features of desires that suggest that they differ in more than cosmetic detail from emotions.
First, some episodic desires are not felt, though violent or urgent desires will be. Contrast for instance your episodic desire to go to Spain next year, which may not feel any specific way, with your episodic desire to rush to the bathroom. Second, desires are not obviously episodic in nature, occurring at a given time, as emotions are. To say at a given time that you desire to go to Spain next year is not obviously to assert that you are at that time having a mental episode of desiring something, since the affirmation may be correct even when you are completely wrapped up in some unrelated activity or when you are asleep. Third, we have noted that emotions can, but need not, be attitudes directed towards states of affairs, as revealed by the fact that many verbs for emotions can indifferently take propositional or nominal complements.
Desires, however, always appear to be attitudes towards states of affairs. There is indeed good reason to believe that when we make assertions such as ‘Fred wants a gourmet dinner’ or ‘Maria wants Paul’, these nominal constructions are ellipses for propositional constructions. One argument for this is as
follows: it is always possible to add a temporal modifier to a desire attribution with a nominal content (for instance,‘Fred wants a gourmet dinnerbefore the end of the week’), where the temporal modifier concerns what is desired and not the time at which the psychological state of desire takes place. That is to say, Frednow wants a certain state of affairs–i.e. that he enjoy a gourmet dinner at some time between now and Sunday.5 Fourth, desires, in contrast to emotions, are always about states of affairs that the subject does not believe already obtain. If Sam believes that Mary died, he can be happy about it or regret it, but he cannot want her to die. Fifth, there is a colorable case that desires, being essentially motivational states (e.g., Hume 1975, Smith 1994), are internally related to the subject’s conviction that she can, directly or indirectly, do something to bring about what she desires (or, more modestly, to the subject’s lack of conviction that she cannot do anything to bring it about). While emotions also have important links with action, the link is much weaker, as shown by the case of emotions directed at the past. Sam might regret what he has done while fully aware that he cannot undo it in any way. In this connection, it is often pointed out that it would be odd, for example, to attribute to Sam a desire that some event had not occurred.
Indeed, when the event lies in the past, we speak instead of Sam’s wish that it had not occurred.
At this stage, it already looks like desires differ significantly from emotions.
Unlike emotions, desires are not always felt and often seem to be dispositions rather than episodes. Their respective intentional features also display inter- esting disanalogies: desires appear to be essentially directed towards states of affairs that are not believed to obtain, and seem to exhibit an essential link with the subject’s awareness of a possibility to act.
Nevertheless, this series of contrasts can seem superficial. After all, nothing in what has been said lets us make a fundamental distinction between felt desires and emotions such as hope, nor between wishes and emotions directed at the past. Does this mean that nothing ultimately distinguishes them? The difference between desires and other conative phenomena, on the one hand, and emotions, on the other hand, is arguably situated at a more fundamental level that also concerns their respective intentionality. This difference comes down to the fact that desires and emotions have oppositedirections offit. Indeed, conative phenomena like desires have a world-to-mind direction of fit (e.g., Searle 1983). That is to say, the point of a desire is to bring about changes in the world so that the world comes to be as it is represented by the desire.
And when this happens, or (in a stronger version of the idea) when the desire of the agent causes an action that brings about these changes, the desire is satisfied or fulfilled. On this stronger interpretation, if Fred desires to invite Mary to the party, his desire is satisfied or fulfilled when he sends his invitation.
This feature does not seem to be shared by the other affective phenomena, in particular emotions. It does not seem to make sense to say of an episode of fear or sadness that it is‘fulfilled’in this sense. If what I feared would happen ends up happening, we won’t say that my fear is satisfied or fulfilled (for it 10 Homing in on the emotions
did not aim at being fulfilled in the way a desire with the same content would);
rather, we would say that it turned out to be correct or justified. There was something right about being afraid that it would happen. To recall, we assess emotions rather along the same lines as the way we assess beliefs or perceptions:
they are correct or incorrect depending on whether things actually stand (or stood or will stand) as they are represented by the belief or the perception.
That is to say, emotions have the opposite–mind-to-world– direction offit.
Desires may of course still have correctness conditions (mind-to-world direction of fit) in addition to fulfillment conditions (world-to-mind direction of fit), but the fact that they have the latter sets them clearly apart from emotions and other affective phenomena.6 However, this difference in directions of fit has not prevented a number of philosophers from defending the idea that emotions can be cashed out in terms of desires, or that they contain a certain desire as an essential part. In Chapter 3 we will revisit the issue of these mental states’directions offit as well as the question of what role desires have, if any, in an account of the emotions. More generally, we shall have to explore the motivational role characteristic of emotions, a role which we suggested differs markedly from that of desires.
This completes our survey of the different affective states that we might want to distinguish from the emotions, i.e. moods, desires, character traits, sentiments, and affective dispositions generally. While differing from the emotions, all of these affective states are among their main determinants; we often appeal to them to explain why we respond emotionally in the way we do. Now, as already mentioned, one of the central issues of this book is the question of the conditions under which emotions are justified. It goes without saying, then, that an account of justified emotions will have to assess the potential epistemological roles played by all these affective states, something we shall do in Chapter 9.
Conclusion
This first approach to the emotions has helped us picture them in the fol- lowing way. Emotions are episodes that have a felt character and are directed at particular objects provided by their cognitive bases. They appear moreover to be intimately related to evaluations of these objects and are subject to assessment by means of a variety of distinct standards, most prominently among them standards of correctness and justification. We have also seen how the distinctions we introduced to picture the emotions in that way allow us to tell them apart from other psychological states in general and other affective states more particularly. While we believe that this rough portrayal of the emotions is essentially faithful to their nature, the journey we are about to embark on in the following pages will illustrate that none of the ideas it rests on should be naively accepted, for not one has gone unchallenged. As a matter of fact, the very idea that emotions constitute a respectable psycho- logical category for philosophical or scientific inquiry has been seriously challenged, as we shall see in the next chapter.
Questions and further readings
(1) What are the different types of standards by means of which we assess emotions?
(2) We said that emotions have cognitive bases. What is a cognitive base?
(3) Is it possible to draw a principled distinction between emotions and desires?
We have alluded to the idea, without discussing it, that emotions arepassive phenomena. That is, emotions, much like perceptions and in contrast to epi- sodes of imagining, are not subject to the will. For a different point of view, see Sartre (1948) and Solomon (1973). For a very helpful discussion of the passivity of the emotions and its connections with the way we speak of them, see Gordon (1987).
Philosophers who have laid great emphasis on the felt character of the emotions in recent years are Pugmire (1998) and Stocker (1983). For a very wide-ranging review of the way feelings might be thought to be involved in the emotions, see Lambie and Marcel (2002).
On the topic of theintentionality of the emotions, de Sousa (1987) remains the best discussion, notably in the way it distinguishes the various senses in which emotions can be said to have objects (see in particular Chapter 5).
For the idea that mental states in general and emotions in particular can have non-propositional objects, see Montague (2007).
Regarding the variousstandardsto which the emotions are answerable or the different senses in which we may say that emotions are appropriate or inap- propriate, see D’Arms and Jacobson (2000), Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen (2004), and Tappolet (2011).
The classical discussion of the notion of directions of fit in general and its application to desires in particular is found in Searle (1983). For a helpful discussion of this notion, see Humberstone (1992). Schroeder (2004: Chapter 1) offers a very useful survey of contemporary approaches to the nature of desires.
The widespread thesis that desires are essentially motivational states is convincingly defended (against Schroeder amongst others) in Wall (2009).
We have suggested that moods differ from emotions in that they are not subject to standards of correctness, a topic we shall develop in Chapter 9. For three different views that nevertheless converge on the idea that moods are closer to the emotions than we suggest, see Crane (1998), Goldie (2000: Chapter 6), and Prinz (2004: Chapter 8). For an important and very different approach to the topic of moods in the contemporary literature, see Ratcliffe (2008). For a general survey of affective dispositions, see Ben Ze’ev (2000: Chap. 4).
Notes
1 The discussion here alludes to the question of whether emotions, or some emotions, exhibit, like perceptions for example, a feature philosophers refer to as‘factivity’. For a defense of the factivity of certain emotions, see Gordon (1987) and, for a critique of this view, Wollheim (1999:
103–10).
12 Homing in on the emotions
2 According to an alternative and widespread view, moods are evaluative apprehensions of ‘the whole world’or some vaguely specified aspects of it. While not deprived of intuitive plausibility– it might be one way of affirming that moods color our experience–we believe that this view should be given up since it implies that moods should almost always be assessed as incorrect and unjustified, rather than being not subject to the relevant standards. See also the‘Questions and further readings’section and Chapter 9, pp. 105–106.
3 For a discussion of the distinction between dispositions and occurrences in the affective domain, see Lyons (1980: 53–57) and Mulligan (1998).
4 Two important exceptions are Goldie (2000) and Wollheim (1999).
5 This argument is presented in Searle (1983: 30). For discussion and further references, see Montague (2007: 508).
6 The fact that beliefs aim at adjusting themselves to the way the world is has led some (e.g., Searle 1983: Chapter 1) to think of them as satisfied when they succeed in adjusting themselves in that way. Satisfaction in this sense is obviously not what we mean when we speak of fulfillment in connection with desires, since beliefs never aim at adjusting the world to how they represent it.
The fact that, unlike desires, beliefs or emotions do not aim at being fulfilled is brought to light when we consider the impact of evidence that their respective contents do not obtain. Other things being equal, one ceases to believe that it is raining when confronted with evidence that it is not raining, one ceases to fear getting attacked by the lion when one sees that its cage is locked, but one continues to desire to solve the puzzle when confronted with evidence that one has not solved it yet.
2 The diversity and unity of emotions
In the previous chapter, we highlighted the diversity of the affective domain by drawing attention to some important differences between the emotions and other affective phenomena. In the present chapter, we turn to an examination of the diversity within the category of emotion. We shall inquire whether there are important differences amongst the phenomena that we call emo- tions, and, if so, whether this casts doubts on the fundamental unity of this category. To do so, we have to examine more closely some of the important distinctions that can be made within the narrower domain of emotions. We shall start by considering some distinctions, primarily those between positive and negative emotions and between conscious and unconscious emotions, contrasts within the domain that in our opinion do not threaten the unity of the category as a whole. Next, we shall turn our attention to another dis- tinction, that between basic and nonbasic emotions, which structures many current debates about the emotions. Since it has been argued that this dis- tinction puts into question the unity and theoretical interest of the common- sense category of emotion, our discussion culminates with an evaluation of this suggestion.
Positive and negative emotions
Afirst distinction that structures our intuitive grasp of the emotional domain is that between positive and negative emotions. Intuitively, sadness, fear, disgust, shame, and regret count as negative, while joy, admiration, pride, and amuse- ment count as positive. In this context philosophers and psychologists speak of the‘polarity’or‘valence’of emotions. Accounting for this central aspect of emotional phenomena has typically taken one of two forms: we may approach valence in hedonic or in conative terms.
The hedonic approach has it that the various kinds of emotions are to be classed as positive or negative in virtue of‘what it is like’to experience them.
The idea here, one that already surfaced in our brief discussion of the phe- nomenology of the emotions in Chapter 1, is that each kind of emotion is among other things essentially a kind of pleasure or displeasure, pleasure and displeasure being considered as irreducible, phenomenological qualities (hence the talk in terms of the positive or negative hedonic quality of an